All round, the landscape stretches bare,
The bleak fields lying far and wide,
Monotonous, with here and there
A lone tree on a lone hillside.
No more the land is glorified
With golden gleams of ripening corn,
Scarce is a cheerful hue descried -
The leaves are off Queen Mary's Thorn.
For me, I do not greatly care
Though leaves be dead, and mists abide.
To me the place is thrice as fair
In winter as in summer-tide:
With kindlier memories allied
Of pleasure past and pain o'erworn.
What care I, though the earth may hide
The leaves from off Queen Mary's Thorn?
Thus I unto my friend replied,
When, on a chill late autumn morn,
He pointed to the tree, and cried,
`The leaves are off Queen Mary's Thorn!'
PATRIOTISM
There was a time when it was counted high
To be a patriot--whether by the zeal
Of peaceful labour for the country's weal,
Or by the courage in her cause to die:
FOR KING AND COUNTRY was a rallying cry
That turned men's hearts to fire, their nerves to steel;
Not to unheeding ears did it appeal,
A pulpit formula, a platform lie.
Only a fool will wantonly desire
That war should come, outpouring blood and fire,
And bringing grief and hunger in her train.
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